Disposable Music

Abstract

This article introduces the concept of real-time composition and composition as a “dispositif” in the sense of Foucault and Deleuze, defining it as a heterogeneous ensemble of pieces that together form an apparatus. The introduction situates the dispositif in the context of cultural developments, most notably its slow but steady shift away from textualization in digital media. As musicians are adapting to ensuing cultural and, above all, economic changes, new musical forms emerge that rely to a lesser degree on fully notated scores, such as “comprovisation” or laptop performance. Antithetically, the computer also allows the creation of “authorless” notated scores in real time to be sight-read by capable musicians—a practice for which special software has been developed in recent years. Because these scores are not meant to be kept and distributed, they are ephemeral and, therefore, disposable. Three examples by the author are given to illustrate the interwovenness of this approach, where carefully selected narratives and dramaturgies make up for the inherent unpredictability of the outcome.